Page 346 of Legacy
Angelo
The fluorescent light overhead hums like a fucking hornet in my ear.
She’s sitting on the hospital bed, stiff as steel, trembling like glass. Hands clenched in her lap, knees pressed together, jaw tight enough to shatter.
She won’t look at me. She hasn’t said a word since we left the warehouse, and I—God help me—I don’t know how to fix this.I’mthe one who put her in that chair with my past choices. Not Karekin. Not Gio.Me.
The nurse tried. The doctor tried.
She won’t let anyone touch her.
She let me carry her. Let me hold her. But that was survival. Not trust. Not forgiveness.
I crouch in front of her. “Tesoro,” I murmur, voice low. “You have to let them examine you. Please. Just to make sure you’re okay. I’ll be right here.”
She shakes her head, violently, like the thought itself is poison.
“No. I know what you think, but I didn’t let them.”
I freeze.
Everything inside me stills.
No. No, no,no—
“No, I—” My voice catches. I force the words through the lump in my throat. “Adriana, if they did…”
My chest heaves once, the thought cutting so deep I almost choke on it.
I’ll kill every man who touched her. I’ll burn this entire fucking city down.
“I would never think youletthem.”
Her eyes meet mine.
Raw.
Rage and shame and something else, something broken, burn behind her gaze.
And it guts me. Because I did this. I made her my wife, dragged her into my war, and now she’s shivering in a hospital bed trying to prove to me that she didn’t want to be taken, hurt...
“I fought him off,” she says.
The breath leaves my lungs in a rush.
“They thought they were locking me in a cage withhim?” She shakes her head a bitter chuckle escaping her.
Her lip curls, fury slicing through the tremor in her voice. “No, he was locked in withme.”
Her voice cracks, barely a whisper.
“The one with the phone had to drag his body away. He didn’t get to touch me.”
I nod, trying to process it, but the words stick.
She fought. Of course she did.My wife.
“Draghis body?”
